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American charged in plot to smuggle airliners to Iran

Ben Wolford

FOR anyone - let alone a middle-aged aircraft mechanic from Texas - the plan to smuggle seven jetliners into Iran was audacious and risky.

It also failed.

It involved planes in China, Swiss funds and a blacklisted Iranian airline. US federal prosecutors say Diocenyr Ribamar Barbosa-Santos, 52, of Fort Worth, Texas, tried to broker the $US136.5 million ($130.5 million) deal out of Florida.

But the plan failed this month before a single Airbus A300 left the ground.

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''It's not every day that someone walks into your office with a charge like this,'' said William Barner, the lawyer representing Mr Barbosa-Santos over charges of violating federal trade restrictions. If convicted, the penalties include 20 years in prison and a $US1 million fine.

In Iran, the demand for commercial jets is becoming urgent, and the tentacles of a black market for aircraft have seeped into places close to the US.

South Florida is a hotbed of illicit transactions of all kinds, investigators say, but lately many have involved Iran.

In 2009, an Iranian woman was sentenced in Fort Lauderdale for attempting to broker a deal for 3500 pairs of night-vision goggles.

Then last year, Felipe Echeverry, now a defendant in the US District Court, led undercover agents to a Miami warehouse where he was allegedly storing 22 F-5 fighter jet engines awaiting export to Iran.

Mr Barner is quick to distinguish between those cases and the charges Mr Barbosa-Santos now faces.

The US outlawed dealings with Iran in 1995, long before recent concerns about the nation's nuclear program. But government officials say sanctions on civilian aircraft buttress the security efforts.

How Mr Barbosa-Santos allegedly found his way into the fabric of a large international struggle is unclear. The US Attorney's Office in Miami and agents at Homeland Security Investigations have not revealed the specifics of the case.

The federal complaint says Brazilian-born Mr Barbosa-Santos is now a US citizen.

The only crime on his record is a charge of disorderly conduct and trespassing in 1997, when he was living in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and for which he was not prosecuted.

In 2001, Mr Barbosa-Santos registered a business called Aerojet Engineering, based a few hundred metres from Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.

Three years later, he registered Aerobraz Aircraft Marketing Corp out of the same office. Mr Barbosa-Santos signed paperwork as the president, vice-president, treasurer and secretary. His mailing address was listed in suburban Fort Worth.

In Miami, Mr Barbosa-Santos obtained a mechanic's licence from the Federal Aviation Administration to work on aircraft.

At some point between beginning work in the aviation industry and January this year, Mr Barbosa-Santos allegedly started talking to people involved in a network of Chinese government officials and suppliers eager to tap into the Iranian market.

For companies inside ostracised Iran, ''it's been very difficult for them to engage in a legitimate financial transaction'', a senior special agent for Homeland Security Investigations, Alfred DeAngelus, said.

Moving seven commercial aircraft is easier than it may seem. Federal court filings allege Mr Barbosa-Santos was planning to pay a Chinese source $19.5 million for each of the seven planes to then sell to Iran Air.